Glittering Gold Wishes
by Toffke
Summary: A regular, adult Harry. A Harry untouched by Voldemort, magic, fame, duty, and love. Someone who wishes, like most, to be a little more than he is, and, unlike them, gets it in the absolutely worst way possible.
Looking for beta, maybe. I have this long-winded style that may be annoying to some people, but I'm writing this as I go, so, no edits by me, sorry :P

Disclaimer: I don't own HP.

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The day had been a right little bugger, oh yes, it had been. It was a terrible day to end a terrible week, but too much in an ambiguously upset way to make him feel the need to actually change anything, yet annoying enough he couldn't sit still and take the abuse, whatever fate had in store for him. He didn't believe in fate, anyways. It was simply just far too much of a pain to live out his boring yet blessed life, and it was such a cruel and ignorant thing to think, too, that he felt guilty and rightfully so, but sometimes, he could not help but want something interesting, exciting, dangerous. Something that would make him regret every believing his plain life was not worth his gratitude, because he certainly didn't have the maturity to do so.

He wrapped his arms around himself and looked out the window. It was sunny and beautiful. The leaves of the dogwoods threw the light into patches of white and gold that scattered across his yard. His parent's yard. It was too beautiful a day to sit and sulk, he supposed. He need something like a dungeon to match his mood, or better yet, a prison, because once these moods caught you it was hard to escape them. He shook his head in disgust and snatched up a magazine from the floor. It was bright and too flamboyant, full of lies in bright texts that swam across the page so quickly it was like they were trying to drug you into buying in whatever 5-knut pyramid scheme had cropped up this time. He felt disgust. He hated himself. Oh Merlin, he needed sleep.

Harry picked himself up and shuffled across to him bedroom, delighting in the touch of the cool wood floor to his bare feet. Without the noise of the magazine in his sight, he found that he felt much less irritable. But he wasn't satisfied, not yet. And it was painful because he could not feel and because it was himself who had brought his emotions to this pitiful state, like some fool.

He dragged his finger across the weathered, dusty handrail of the staircase as he climbed to the upper floor and the comfort of his bedroom. Perhaps he was depressed. Perhaps he had always been crazy. He needed to find a way out of this mess that he had carelessly gotten into. He needed...he didn't know. His emotions were damped, missing even, but he wasn't such a self-conceited wimp to believe that there was something wrong with him mentally. He was not ill, he refused to be ill. The chandelier tinkled above him, and Harry suddenly stopped and relaxed his magic. He had been gripping the stairwell so hard the veins of his hand bulged. He relaxed his hand, too, and waited until the blood had rushed away and his hand was pale again. Pale as bones, he thought wryly. There, all better.

He still hated himself, though, but it brought him a sense of security because that meant he could still feel something. And it wasn't like anyone never hated themselves, ever. With that resolution, he moved to the foot of his bed, sank into the depths of his down blankets like a sinner, and held it like a mother's warm embrace.

Did you know dreams don't mean anything? They do not foretell doom, not even the magical ones. People say that dreams are just rehashes of bits of your memory as your brain does whatever it does when you fall asleep. The phenomenon isn't fully understood yet, but they are not so mysterious as they seem. Reality, on the other hand, that is where all the strangeness comes from. Reality is what made people see in some colors but not all but what made things in the sea see in more colors than people could ever imagine, reality is what made time cause things to stretch and shrink to accommodate its speeds. Reality is Harry deciding to visit the healers in the morning, after drinking his usual bottle of nasty runny strawberry _rubber_ fortified with energy replenisher, to diagnose his recurring dream, which had been bothering him for a couple weeks now, even though dreams didn't mean anything and Harry was smart enough to know that.

Healer Jung picked up his pamphlet and flipped through it in mock studiousness. They were sitting in one of those too well furnished rooms, the ones with rich teak tables ruined by horrid 18th century wood carvings, cushions in deep greens, deep reds, expensive colors that made the entire room feel far too old and far too moldy for something constructed at most, a decade ago. Harry peered at the edge of the paper and saw the words, "50 ways to show your partner you love them," emblazoned in a glittering pink cursive. Harry looked away in disinterest, and Jung closed the book.

"You know, Mister Potter," Jung started, slowly, "sometimes dreams are there to tell us things, to warn us of future troubles. Some believe they are messages from the grave. Do you care to tell me more about your dream? Perhaps we can decode it together."

At this, Harry stared at the mediwizard blankly, which Jung noted with irritation as it was the first time since his arrival that his patient had given him his full attention.

The healer was a buffoon, Harry thought. Did all wizarding folk believe in such obvious lies? He waited for a little longer than appropriate to respond because he didn't know quite how to phrase his sudden desire to leave in such a way as to not be impolite. It was very curious that even a licensed practitioner would hold such beliefs, and even worse, try to convince the public that they were true. Harry closed his eyes in exasperation and thought of his aunt Petunia, who had told him never to believe in silly things that overstrained the imagination.

"Healer Jung, do you mind if, not to be rude or anything, of course, I left for the day?" As the healer started to lean back in what Harry sensed was displeasure, he hasted to mention that he had just realized he had double booked himself for the hour, although that was a complete lie and the healer probably knew as well, judging by his freezing politeness as Harry was helped out. The healer left him near a fireplace, which was called a floo, as he had learned recently. It took him two tries to be teleported back into his home, and he embarrassed himself thoroughly for that because in the wizarding world, adults were supposed to be expert users of the floo transportation. But he was not a wizard, really, and it was strange to think he would ever truly be one of them because he had always lived with his aunt and uncle and cousin Dudley, perfectly normal, sane people, and had never wanted to immigrate to the strange place known as Wizarding Britain.


End file.
